


nature's pace

by artenon



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Bardic Magic, Childhood to Adolescence, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 10:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artenon/pseuds/artenon
Summary: Misik'a Rahsi's childhood was spent waiting for a future he wasn't sure existed.





	nature's pace

**Author's Note:**

> for my friend [feasts](https://twitter.com/feastings)!!! thank you for letting me write your boy's backstory... i love misik'a and want to give him lots of hugs :')
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/qorktree)!

**i.**

Misik’a crawled through the sedges, elbows dragging in the mud and peat, edging closer to the shallow bed of water. He puffed his cheeks to hold his breath and inched forward the last few feet. Almost close enough, now. His tail twitched.

He lunged, arms splayed out. He landed stomach-first, and it drove the breath out of him but his fingers closed triumphantly around his prey: a small frog, until now innocently minding its own business in the bog.

He clutched the frog in one hand and pushed himself to his feet. Mud clung to his cheek; he swiped his sleeve over it, but that succeeded only in smearing even more muck across his face. The frog stared at him with beady eyes. He grinned back down at it.

He secured his prize in both hands and took off in a run. Dapples of moonlight breaking through the thickly clustered leaves and the dim pink glow from the surrounding flora provided the only light in the dense forest, but Misik’a confidently weaved between trees and dodged around thorny underbrush as he hurried home.

Home was a pocket of land that had previously been cleared for construction by Gridanians, but had by now been mostly reclaimed by the wilderness. A broken fence circled the territory. There was a large wooden cottage in the middle and a smaller one along the edge of the fence next to another small one that had only been halfway built before the site was abandoned. Misik’a and his parents lived in the big one in the middle, but it didn’t really matter because they were all the same: rotting and overrun by vines.

Mom called the place ramshackle. Fen called it a disgrace.

“Squatting in an old Wood Wailer den,” she would say, fangs bared in disgust. She was Mom and Dad’s friend, and she lived in the smaller cottage by the fence, the one that had been built all the way. Mom and Dad went out a lot, so Misik’a usually found himself under Fen’s watch. She was old, a lot older than Mom, and stern and frowny, but she would often smile at Misik’a, in a cracked and brittle sort of way. “I loathe to use anything of theirs.”

Wood Wailers didn’t like Keepers, Mom told him, although some Keepers did live in the city nowadays. But Fen stood by what she remembered, and she always warned Misik’a not to wander off and get too close to the road when he went with Mom to watch her hunt.

“Why don’t you live somewhere else?” Misik’a had asked Fen, not too long ago.

“I’ve nowhere else to go,” she’d said. “This place is all there is for Miqo’te like us.”

“Misik’a isn’t like you,” Dad had said, patiently, patting Misik’a’s hair.

“Like what?” he’d wanted to know, but Dad took him back to their own house because it was nearly sunrise and he and Mom had just gotten back from exploring all night and they needed to sleep.

It was barely the middle of the night now as Misik’a ducked under the fence and scampered toward his house, just in time to hear Mom call for him.

“Here I am!” He stumbled to a stop in front of her. “Look! I caught this for you.”

“Oh,” Mom said. She wrinkled her nose. “Thanks.”

He shook the frog in his hands. It croaked in plaintive protest. “Do you want it?”

“No,” she said quickly. “No, put that down.”

Misik’a pouted but did as he was told, stooping down to release the frog. It slipped out of his hands the moment he loosened his hold and quickly hopped away.

He turned back to Mom and lifted his arms with a hopeful smile.

She sighed. “Aren’t you getting to be too old for this?”

The pang in his stomach fell away in a swoop as a pair of strong arms lifted him up from behind, and Misik’a found himself nestled against Dad’s sturdy frame.

“Yay!” He laughed and nuzzled Dad’s cheek.

“He’s filthy,” Mom said.

“I’m four.” As good an age as any for playing in the mud and getting picked up by your parents, Misik’a figured. Dad and Fen said he was too young for a lot of things; Mom didn’t always agree.

“Never mind,” she said. “We’re going to Fen’s.”

She started walking, setting a brisk pace, and Dad fell into step beside her, Misik’a secure in his arms.

“Are you going to listen to me practice?” Misik’a asked. Fen was teaching him how to play the lyre, and he was getting pretty good at it.

“Maybe another time,” Mom said.

“I’m really good now,” he said.

“Yes,” Mom said, “you are. I do wish Fen would teach you something more useful, though.”

Misik’a bit his lip. He liked learning music. “Fen says it’s important.”

Mom snorted. “Fen is old, and she has a lot of strange ideas. You shouldn’t always listen to her.”

But who else could he listen to, Misik’a wondered, when Mom was always busy and Dad hardly ever said anything? Fen was always willing to dispense her worldly wisdom.

Misik’a knew better than to argue, though, so he decided to switch courses. “Are you going exploring?”

“Yes,” Mom said.

“Will you be back before sunrise?”

“Not this time.”

Mom didn’t look at him as she spoke. She started walking faster, and Dad hurried to catch up. Misik’a clutched Dad’s shoulders to hold himself steady.

“We might be a little longer this time,” Mom said.

“Longer?”

But they were already at Fen’s front door, Mom knocking three sharp raps.

The door creaked open and Fen smiled her cracked, brittle smile at Misik’a. “Hello, boy.”

“Hello, Fen,” he said.

Dad put him down.

“We’ll be back in a few days or so,” Mom said.

“Oh, a few days,” Fen said. There was something in her tone that Misik’a didn’t understand, but Mom seemed to, by the way she bared her fangs.

“An old friend needs my help. Is that a problem?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Fen said. She looked down to Misik’a. “Why don’t we have your music lesson now?”

She beckoned him in, and Misik’a entered slowly, casting a look over his shoulder. Mom had already turned away and started walking, and Dad waved at him before following.

“Come on, boy,” Fen called.

With one last look at his parents’ retreating backsides, Misik’a ran after her.

 

**ii.**

Misik’a winced as he pressed his finger too far down the neck of his violin and his bow dragged out a sour note that reverberated throughout the room.

Fen crossed her arms. “Focus.”

“Sorry.” He replayed the piece from the top, minding where he put his fingers and beaming when Fen nodded in approval.

Violin was harder than the lyre, but easier than the flute. On the whole, he liked the stringed instruments better, but holding the violin up made his arm sore, and Fen was a stickler about posture.

He set the violin down and rolled his neck. “When’d you learn to play so many instruments?”

“Oh, I was very young. Younger than your mother is now, if you can imagine me being so young and fair.” She cackled and it was a harsh, grating sound. “But I had to learn. I had to entertain the King.”

“The King?”

Fen squinted at him. “How old are you now, boy?”

“Seven…”

He squirmed. Dad would always say _he’s too young_ when Misik’a pestered Fen with questions, like why she always walked around the broken fences circling the territory with her violin, playing her music where no one could hear her. But he wanted to know. He was old enough. He was at least old enough now to know that Mom and Dad weren’t just _exploring_ when they left. Someone always needed help, a battle fought, a monster killed. Mom had to help them, and Dad had to help her.

Mom and Dad were gone all the time now, barely staying for a full turn of the moon before leaving again, each time longer than the last. Misik’a missed them. The house was bigger without them. He liked spending his days with Fen, liked that she paid him more attention than Mom and Dad, but she also growled whenever he asked if he could play outside, and he wasn’t allowed to go out with her when she went hunting, not even to hide in a tree and watch her technique like he did with Mom. He had to stay behind and clean up and pounce on dust bunnies instead of real ones.

He wasn’t old enough to hunt; he wasn’t old enough to go with Mom and Dad; he wasn’t old enough for anything.

“I’m almost eight,” he said, which was a lie. Seven and a half, maybe; eight was pushing it.

“Eight,” Fen mused. “Still a couple years younger than…” She cleared her throat. “I suppose I can tell you, and maybe now you’ll understand why this world’s no place for you to go out playing by yourself.”

She sat down on the wood floor, cross-legged, inviting Misik’a to sit in her lap.

Once he was settled, she said, “I used to be in a group of Miqo’te called the Coeurlclaws, ruled by the Coeurlclaw King. He was… a bad person.”

Misik’a tilted his head back to look up at her. “I thought moms lead Miqo’te clans.”

“Keeper clans, yes, but this wasn’t a normal clan. We weren’t a family. The King led us, gave us shelter in exchange for… anything he wanted. We fought for him, and worse. That’s why I’m here in this forsaken place. No Keeper clan would accept me, my former Coeurlclaw sisters would kill me, and the Gridanians would arrest me on sight. I have nowhere else to go. I don’t even know where my children are.”

Misik’a didn’t understand much of what Fen said, but he perked up at the end. “You have kids?”

“Oh, yes. My first was Fen’a. The King didn’t like boys though, so once Fen’a was old enough, he sent him far away and ordered he never return. By the time I had my daughter, I’d realized that this was no place to raise children. I named her Fen’to and raised her as my son and she, too, was sent away by the King. My last was Fen’li.”

Fen stopped. Her arms closed around Misik’a. He squirmed in her lap and she tightened her hold, pinning him down. Her raspy breaths filled the room.

Misik’a swallowed. “What happened to him?”

“He… we escaped. After I had Fen’li, I decided that when the King sent him away, I would go with him. I couldn’t stand being there anymore, no matter how scared I was of leaving.”

“But where is he now?”

“Listen to me go on and on. To answer your original question,” Fen said, “I learned so many instruments while I was a Coeurlclaw. The King would often take his bad moods out on us, and we learned to keep him happy as best we could. Music was one such way. It’s a powerful thing, music.”

Misik’a didn’t know why Fen was avoiding his question, but he was afraid that if he pushed it, Fen would get mad, and making her mad made him feel sick to his stomach. Besides, he’d much rather think about the songs she would play that made him want to sing and dance.

“I like your happy music.”

“Thank you,” Fen said, ruffling his hair. “I think you would be quite good at playing music that soothes the soul. That’s why I picked your current piece.”

“Ooh…”

He crawled off her lap and picked up his violin. He hummed the tune of the piece and he could picture it, the calmness in the long notes and smooth transitions. Warm, like when Dad wrapped him up in his arms and pressed his nose into his hair.

“I want to play this song for Mom and Dad when they come back. Do you think they’ll like it?”

Fen’s expression darkened. “Of course not.” Her voice strained, and it sounded like when Misik’a didn’t draw the bow correctly against the violin’s strings, all harsh and scratchy. “Not until you manage a consistent tempo and stop missing the last note in the fifth measure.”

Each word pushed a spike of dread into his stomach, warmth slithering away. He’d said something wrong. He closed his eyes, every nerve in his body frozen in anticipation of punishment.

“Enough talking,” Fen said. “Pick up your violin and let’s hear it again.”

The dread faded into pinpricks. He swallowed, nestled his chin against his violin, and did as he was told.

 

**iii.**

“Mom! Dad!”

Misik’a flung himself at them, and Fen frowned from the doorway.

“We’re back,” Mom said unnecessarily. Her fingers skimmed over the top of his head.

“You’ve gotten bigger,” Dad said, though his hand on Misik’a’s shoulder felt as large as ever.

“Your hair is longer,” he said to Dad. To Mom, “And you have a new scar.”

Mom’s sharp grin warped the flesh-pink line on her cheek. “If only you could see the other guy.”

“You can tell me about it before bed!”

Her grin dimmed. “I guess I can.”

Misik’a bit his bottom lip. Mom usually loved telling stories about her adventures. He glanced over his shoulder, but Fen had already retreated into the darkness of her house. He slipped one hand into Dad’s and the other into Mom’s, and they started walking back to the center of the woods-claimed village, to their own house.

“Did something bad happen?” He peered up at Mom.

“What? No.” Mom frowned. “Do you really still need bedtime stories?”

He swallowed. “You were gone for a really long time. I just thought you’d have lots of stories.”

“I’m just—look.” Mom sighed. She pulled her hand out of his grasp and ran her fingers through her bedraggled hair. “We just got back, and I’m tired. Maybe tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” Misik’a curled his fingers into the hem of her shirt.

She took him by the wrist and pried him off. “Honestly, Misik’a, you’re so needy… It’s weird. Keeper boys should be independent by now.”

“Oh,” Misik’a said softly. “Well… Can I play you a song?”

“You know,” Mom said, “I’d like that.”

Misik’a grinned. Mom had come around to the music lessons, after hours of devoted practice on Misik’a’s part and some convincing from both Dad and Fen that it wouldn’t hurt Mom to listen to a song or two. She always seemed more at ease after calming songs, less restless, so he liked to play those for her. And then before she and Dad would leave for their next adventure, Misik’a would play something more exciting and upbeat. He called it his good luck song, and Mom said it made her feel stronger when she left.

“I’ll get my lyre!” he chirped, and skipped ahead to the house.

 

Mom and Fen’s voices, fierce and low, woke Misik’a up. He crawled out of his room and peeked out the window at the front. Mom was pacing, and Fen stood aside with her arms crossed.

“This place is just too small,” he heard Mom say, before her eyes caught on his. “Misik’a.”

He shuffled outside. He wanted to ask what was going on, but with both Fen and Mom looking at him, his voice shrank into silence before it could leave his mouth.

“You made your choice a long time ago,” Fen said, addressing Mom. “Commit to it.” She turned her stern gaze back to Misik’a, and he quailed under it until her brittle smile surfaced. “I’ll see you tomorrow, boy.”

She left, and Mom sighed.

Misik’a moved to stand beside her, but he didn’t know what to say, so he just stayed silent. Mom patted his head; he stood very, very still and hoped that she might continue, but she dropped her hand after a brief moment.

“You’re doing okay here?” Mom asked. “Surely you can hunt for yourself now? Cook?”

“I can cook. Fen doesn’t let me go hunting. She says it’s dangerous.”

Mom looked annoyed at the mention of Fen. “Of course she does. Well, I’m taking you hunting with me tomorrow.”

“Okay!” He hardly ever got to spend time with Mom, even when she was home. A thrill of anticipation coursed through him. Then he hesitated. “Are you coming back to bed now?”

“No, I’m going for a walk.”

Misik’a took in her tense shoulders and the flicking tip of her tail. She looked like a bird ready to take flight, and he thought that if she did, she might never come back.

“Can I play you a song instead?” he asked.

“I don’t think…”

“Please,” he said.

Mom looked at him. “Alright,” she said. “You can play your song.”

Misik’a smiled, though something was constricting in his chest and preventing it from spreading to full width. “I’ll get my lyre.”

It wasn’t enough to make her stay for long, he knew. But if it could make her stay just for now, he couldn’t ask for more.

 

**iv.**

“I’m so proud of you,” Mom said.

Misik’a preened under the praise. He’d been hunting a lot more since Fen’s eyesight started failing, and he’d hoped his parents would be impressed the next time they came home. He’d fixed up the nicest meal he could tonight, something that could sate even Mom’s ravenous appetite.

“You can really take care of yourself now, can’t you?”

Mom’s voice was warm with approval, and Misik’a basked in it. Yes, he could take care of himself, and he could look out for his parents, too. He could do more than just send them off with a song of well wishes. Maybe next time they left for an adventure, they’d let him go with them.

 

Come next day, they were already gone by the time he woke up.

 

**v.**

The seasons passed.

His parents didn’t come back. He hunted and cooked and kept his and Fen’s homes tidy.

His parents had never been gone this long before. They would probably be back soon.

The seasons passed.

 

**vi.**

From her armchair, Fen loomed over where he sat on a stool. Blindness did not dull her piercing stare, wild moon-white eyes trained unblinking on him. Her nostrils flared with heavy breaths and her wiry hair swung against her dry, cracked cheeks.

“What did you say?” she asked.

She’d heard him, he was sure. He’d said something bad, and Fen wanted to make sure he knew it.

The problem was, he didn’t know what was bad about it.

“I said,” he whispered, “I wonder when my parents will come back.” He hunched his shoulders, wrapped his arms around himself.

Fen snorted. She leaned back in her chair. “Forget about them. They don’t exist. They’d certainly like to pretend you didn’t.”

“What?”

“I knew Misik would never be able to commit to a child. She’s too taken by wanderlust. Do you think she raised you? She’s no mother. I’ve borne three children.” Her voice dipped into something soft and crackly, and it sounded like how she used to smile at him when she was a child. She never smiled anymore. “I raised you, Fen’li.”

His breath expelled in a whimper. He wanted to say something, anything to make her stop, but his jaw was sealed shut.

“They’re not coming back,” Fen said. “Stop. Waiting.”

The command strangled him.

“Yes,” he said, the word escaping in a small sound out the slight part of his lips. “Sorry.”

Fen sunk down further into her chair and closed her eyes. The hold around his throat loosened.

“Fen’li.” She seemed so much smaller now, diminished. She patted her hand around her shoulder in search of her blanket and pulled it over her chest. “Play a song for your dear mother, Fen’li.”

He hummed his acquiescence. His fingers shook as he picked up his lyre, but they steadied against the familiar curve of wood, the taut strings.

He played slowly, carefully. A soothing song, much like the ones Fen had taught him, but of his own flavor, now. Something to make her old bones feel relaxed and refreshed, with a whisper of apology for speaking out of turn.

“Thank you, Fen’li,” she murmured, and drifted off to sleep.

 

**viii.**

The floorboards creaked beneath his feet but he hummed to announce his approach anyway, plates bearing breakfast in hand. Fen usually griped about how long he took to hunt, but today she was silent.

He swallowed, nervous. Fen didn’t like him talking, unless it was to sing, but she was fond enough of her own voice.

He dug his toes into the floor with each step, felt acutely the drag of his tail over the rough wood. Over the scent of the thick cuts of roasted boar, something smelled… wrong.

He tiptoed to Fen’s bedroom. She had a dirty mattress in the corner of the room and slept with worn-thin blankets layered over her. She slept a lot, lately, but she often liked to be lulled into it by a song. It was rare that she wasn’t already awake and waiting for him.

A cold pit formed in his stomach when he entered the bedroom. It felt like when Fen scolded him, but she wasn’t scolding him now. She was still asleep, or he thought she was, until he approached and realized she wasn’t breathing. Beneath the layers of blankets, he couldn’t hear a heartbeat.

The plates slipped out of his hands and clattered to the floor, and the sudden noise sent a shock through him.

His mouth opened, but no noise came out. Fen didn’t like him talking. But Fen wasn’t—

She _wasn’t_ , anymore.

He ran. Not far, not _outside_ , because outside was dangerous, Fen always said so, but to his own house. He ran to his room and knelt in the corner, clutched the sides of his head with his hands, and exhaled.

And exhaled.

The cold pit in his stomach hadn’t gone away. In fact, it had spread, flooding his veins with ice. His fingers trembled in his hair.

He knew about death, in a sense. He hunted every day, of course, and he remembered… He remembered his mom telling him about bad people she had to fight, sometimes kill. But hunting for food was different, and his mom’s stories had always been just that—stories.

This was different. He didn’t know what to feel. Sad, he thought. But mostly he felt numb, and empty—emptier, a new hole in his life where previously there had been two.

He stood. His legs felt leaden as he walked back to Fen’s house, but he got there eventually, back to her room where she lay still under the blankets.

He stared at her. She looked the same as yesterday, but her face was slack, the usual harsh lines smoothed out, and she was cold when he touched her cheek.

He opened his mouth. The words started out wavering and quiet, but it didn’t take long before he settled into the comfort of the music, the familiarity. A soothing song, the kind he sung so often, the kind Fen liked best.

When he finished, he picked up the plates and food he’d dropped before. He left one of the plates by Fen’s mattress. He took the other one back with him. He still hadn’t eaten, after all.

 

**ix.**

He hunted. He cooked. He cleaned. He sang, sometimes, softly to himself, and he played his instruments.

He didn’t go to Fen’s house.

The moon turned, and the seasons passed.

 

**x.**

It was always quiet, like the forest was holding its breath, and so when it wasn’t, he knew something was wrong. It was raining heavily that day and hard to see, and even he had to be careful making his way back after hunting. Maybe that was why, for the first time, a stranger stumbled into his home.

He peeked out through the window and watched her.

She wasn’t a Miqo’te; he noticed that first, with a prickle of unease. She was drenched from the rain and muddy, like she had taken a fall into the swamp, and she turned this way and that before her eyes settled on his house.

She didn’t seem like a threat, wasn’t battle-scarred or wearing heavy armors. She wasn’t half as scary as the warnings of danger beaten into him whenever he dared to wander too close to the fence, or took too long to come back from hunting.

She started walking towards the house, towards him, and he shrank close to the floor. He shouldn’t engage, except—she was in his home. This was unprecedented. Surely he should guide her out? He’d never been to town, of course, but he’d glimpsed enough travelers while hunting, and he knew where the main roads were.

Fen wouldn’t want a stranger in her territory.

He stood.

The stranger shrieked, and he jumped back, spooked.

“You scared me!” she said, hand to her chest. “What are you doing here? Are you lost, too?”

He stared at her, not understanding. He lived here.

The stranger took a cautious step towards the window. “Can you talk?”

“I—”

He coughed in alarm as the next words pushed against each other and jammed in his throat. He hadn’t actually talked in a long time, he realized, and he always warmed his voice up before he sang. He exhaled through his nostrils and said, “I can show you back to the main road.” His voice rasped like he was speaking through layers of dust.

The cant of her smile was unfamiliar. Trusting, he thought.

“Could you?” she said. “I’m horrendously lost. But would you mind if I stepped in for a moment and caught my breath?”

He shook his head and moved to the door to gesture her in.

“Whoa,” she said, looking around. “It’s spotless in here. Do you…” She turned to him. “Do you live here?”

He nodded.

“By yourself?”

He hesitated. He thought about the other bedroom in his house, the one with the two mattresses pushed against the wall that had lain empty for seasons, the one that he still carefully maintained in some distant hope that their owners would come back some day.

And he thought about the little house by the fence, the one he hadn’t been back to since… The one he hadn’t been back to in a long time. He could see it, small and dark through the rain and distance.

He nodded again.

Maybe he took too long to answer, because the stranger frowned and followed his gaze out the window. “Is someone else here?”

He shook his head, but not before hesitating again, long enough that her frown deepened.

“I’m going to take a look.”

“No.” The word left him before he could stop it, sharp and breathless.

The stranger’s eyes widened, and then gentled into something very soft. It reminded him of his dad, or what abstract recollection he still had of him.

“Hey,” she said. “What are you scared of? It’s okay.”

She touched his shoulder, and a yawning cavern of _longing_ split through him, blindsiding him with its intensity.

He didn’t know the last time he’d felt the warm press of a reassuring hand on him, and he couldn’t do anything but follow in silence as she trekked across the way to Fen’s house.

He dug his heels in at the door, impervious to the rain bearing down on them.

“No,” he said again.

The stranger glanced at him, then inside the open doorway.

“Wait here,” she said.

It felt as if she was barely gone for a breath before she returned, her face ashen.

“Who was that?” she whispered. “Were they your…?”

It didn’t matter how she’d intended to end the question; he wouldn’t know the answer.

“Fen,” he said. “She… raised me.”

“How long have you been here?”

He frowned. It wasn’t like he’d been counting, and how long was forever, anyway?

She didn’t say anything for a moment, and the only sound was the rain pouring down, beating in his ears as she looked at him from the dark of the doorway.

“Let’s go back,” she said.

She stepped forward and flinched a little as she re-entered the torrent. Her feather-light touch on his arm as she led them back to his own house deepened the ache in his gut. He wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what to say, or how to say it, so he said nothing.

“We’ll wait the storm out in here,” she said when they were back in the dry and relative warmth of his home. “But then we should get out of here.”

That made sense. He nodded.

“Listen,” she said. “How would you like to come with me? I mean, to town.”

He furrowed his brows. He didn’t need to go all the way to town; she wouldn’t have trouble finding her way once they made it back to the roads.

“You wouldn’t have to come back here,” she said.

That took him a moment to parse. She didn’t mean to be confusing—the words were plainly spoken—but the idea of leaving, of not coming back, seemed too big for him to comprehend. It seemed impossible.

And yet he yearned for it. In the same way that his chest carved out when the stranger touched his arm or his shoulder, he yearned for it. That life could be more than this little space he lived in was something he had known and yet not fully realized until this moment, when this kind stranger offered something that he didn’t know how to ask for, hadn’t known to ask for.

“Okay,” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Good.” She seemed relieved. “Oh! I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

His name?

It had been a long time since anyone had called him anything, a long time since he had seen anyone at all, and for a time-rending moment, he wondered who he was, and if he’d even existed at all these past seasons, going through the motions of survival alone in his pocket of the world.

Who was he?

He was no one, barely a person, clinging onto the fringes of existence. But he had been someone, before.

Who was he?

_Fen’li._

No, that wasn’t right, either.

Who was he?

“Misik’a,” he said, very quietly.

“Misik’a?” she repeated. He nodded, and she said, “It’s nice to meet you!”

Her smile was open and warm and went directly to Misik’a’s core. His heart sung in a quiet joy that he didn’t know how to express. He didn’t know how to express much—that had been stifled and stamped out of him—but there’d always been one way he could make a connection, a way he could bring someone’s heart into his, if only for a moment. Even cold hearts. Even distant hearts.

He fetched his lyre from his room. “Let me play you a song,” he said, “while we wait for the rain.”

He’d written many, many songs over the seasons, but this would be the first time he performed this one for an audience. His new friend settled on the floor to listen, and Misik’a glided his fingers across the strings and sang his song of gratitude.


End file.
